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Refunds up to 1 day before event

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Description

Designers so often talk about 'impact' and the potential of design to improve the world. And yet so often our work can feel far from truly making a tangible improvement in people's lives. Here's a story that concretely shows us an example of how!

SDTO is really excited to invite Chenny Xia and Markus Grupp to share the story of the The Prosper Lab. The Prosper Lab, as part of the Yonge Street Mission, an inclusive learn-by-doing environment for Torontonians on welfare to build pathways to sustainable employment. Participants at the Lab build their own startup as part of their learning.

Chenny and Markus bring their design experience to The Prosper Lab model through co-creating and iterating with the community members themselves. Human-centred design and entrepreneurial experimentation are at the heart of the project. They will talk about:

The trust building needed to do this work, both with community members and with partners/facilitators

Issues of access in design and the assumptions our tools and methods often make

A meta-ness of a design project - using design to deliver a service and the participants then designing their own products

What making an 'impact' through design looks like in practice, and ways you might consider using your skills to do so

Chenny and Markus are both respected design leaders.

Chenny is a seasoned service designer and entrepreneur who's currently on a year-long learning sabbatical to stretch her practice and explore how she can better serve her local community through design. Having grown up in poverty, the topic of socio-economic empowerment is near and dear to her heart. Her work has taken her all around the world, winning high-profile awards such as Best of CES and the Consumer Electronics Association Innovation Award. In 2014, she was also named one of Canada's Next 36 Leaders.

Markus is Senior Director, Product & Service Design at Kira Systems, a fast growing AI and machine learning company, where his team is focused on delivering great experiences for users, customers and employees alike.

Markus has held leadership roles in experience, product, and service design at Fortune 500 companies, leading design firms, and start-ups in Europe and Canada. Over the past decade, he and his teams have designed and delivered great customer and employee experiences (and some duds) by embedding human-centred design practices in large enterprises (and stumbling a lot along the way), including Indigo, TELUS, Rogers Communications and Orange/ France Telecom.

Markus a seasoned service designer, actively involved in growing service design locally and globally, serving as a director of Service Design Canada, co-programming for its annual Canadian conference and organizing grassroots events. He has presented (and occasionally flubbed) keynotes, workshops and panels at 60+ conferences in Europe, the U.S. and Canada.

A passionate community builder, he co-leads The Prosper Lab, focused on using design to build safe, inclusive learn-by-doing environments supporting individuals living in poverty on their journey to personal transformation and sustainable employment.

Agenda

6.00 pm - Doors Open

6.30 pm SHARP - presentation begins

7.10 pm - Q&A

7.30 pm - wrap up and mingling

Light refreshments will be provided, for example veggies and hummus, chips, and fruit, and an assortment of drinks.

Accessibility

SDTO is committed to improving the accessibility of our events. Please let us know if there are any accommodations that would make attending a better experience for you.

There is a wheelchair accessible entrance through 219 Dufferin Street building C. We will be happy to show you to the Huge office from this entrance, just let us know.

**Our ticket price covers our costs for running the event, and helps us to manage guest list numbers. If ticket price is a barrier to participation for you, please feel free to contact us in confidence and we will be happy to add you to the guest list.

Refund Policy

Refunds will be issued up to one day before the event. We will have a waitlist, so if you can no longer make it, please refund your ticket so someone else can attend.

SDTO Events Code of Conduct

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The Quick Version

Service Design Toronto is dedicated to providing a harassment-free event experience for everyone, regardless of gender, gender identity and expression, age, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, body size, race, ethnicity, religion (or lack thereof), or technology choices. We do not tolerate harassment of event participants in any form. Sexual language and imagery is not appropriate for any event venue, including talks, workshops, parties, Twitter and other online media. Event participants violating these rules may be sanctioned or expelled from the event without a refund at the discretion of the event organisers.

Participants asked to stop any harassing behavior are expected to comply immediately. If a participant engages in harassing behavior, the event organisers may take any action they deem appropriate, including warning the offender or expulsion from the event with no refund.

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Event organizers will be happy to help participants contact hotel/venue security or local law enforcement, provide escorts, or otherwise assist those experiencing harassment to feel safe for the duration of the event. We value your attendance.

(This document is based on confcodeofconduct.com, licenced under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.)